


starlight, starbright

by Shadaras



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-07-29 03:52:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7669066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadaras/pseuds/Shadaras
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The pilots of the Resistance tend to be tattooed. Finn finds this utterly fascinating and different from what he's used to, especially in the case of one Poe Dameron.</p>
            </blockquote>





	starlight, starbright

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SilverDolphin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverDolphin/gifts).



When Finn woke up, two weeks after Starkiller, one week after Rey left, Poe was there waiting for him.

Finn opened his eyes to a rough ceiling, the colors dark and muted in a way that didn’t seem like either First Order bases on-planet or (especially) First Order starships. It smelled wrong, too, like the air circulation units weren’t operating at full efficiency. He was definitely in Medical, though; the various tubes he could feel running through his body made that clear.

He cataloged them, and his physical well-being, to ensure he could move safely: IV in his left arm (fluid nutrition), catheter (obvious consequence), dull pain across his back (memory: _a flash of red, searing pain_ ), sharper pain in his right shoulder (memory: _black hair and pale skin, a predatory smile_ ), overall limpness (how long had he been here?), but nothing restricting him, nothing that was an obvious warning of Stay Still Or You Will Regret It.

So he carefully raised his head to look around.

Poe sat on a chair, leaning up against the wall, and Finn said, “ _Oh_ ,” breath escaping in a rush that charged the quiet room as the memories of the last— how long had it been? A week at most, surely— flooded him.

The chair thunked to the ground, and Poe smiled at him, and he remembered that smile so well. Laughing and running to meet him, this unexpected friend who he’d thought dead— who had thought _him_ dead— and now, that same smile...

Finn said, voice dry from however long spent asleep, “I take it we won?”

Poe laughed, eyes crinkled up and his whole body shaking. Relief as much as joy, it looked like. “Buddy, there are so many things we need to tell you. But yeah, yeah, we won. You did it.”

Finn smiled, and relaxed back down onto the bed. “I’ve got time,” he said, carefully gesturing with his left hand.

“I promised Doctor Kalonia to let her know if you woke up.” There was a rustle of clothing (Poe standing up?) and then footsteps (quiet, no boots; was Poe even wearing shoes?) coming closer. Finn turned his head to look at Poe, and Poe gently laid his hand on Finn’s uninjured shoulder. “But once she’s finished making sure you’re awake for good?” Poe’s smile softened. “I’ll tell you _everything_.”

 

* * *

Three days later, when Finn was finally allowed out of Medical, Poe walked with him. Doctor Kalonia said that he’d healed well, though she was fairly certain the First Order had modified him to heal more swiftly and cleanly than most humans. Even so, Finn’s back ached, and he couldn’t move as fluidly as he was used to. Poe had offered his arm, and, well, he didn’t _need_ the assistance, but it was nice. Poe’s solidity helped. So did the company, as he was shown to his bunkroom.

“Even with everything,” Poe said, hesitantly, as he keyed open the door, “a lot of people don’t want to be in the same room as you, so...”

Finn looked around, and laughed. “I don’t mind bunking with you.”

Poe gently bumped against him and said, “Good.”

 

* * *

Despite rooming together, the first time Finn saw Poe’s tattoos was in the communal showers. Which, for some reason, everyone thought he would be afraid of. That there were _any_ with privacy screens, however rudimentary, was a vast different from the regularity of squad showers in the First Order. On D’Qar, with the Resistance, there was laughter, and you could stay for far longer— the planet had plenty of water.

Maybe they thought it was about how many of the non-human species of the Resistance bathed in water, just like humans did. First Order xenophobia was distinctly a taboo subject in the Resistance, and nobody could (would?) explain why. Especially since non-humans sometimes did serve, just in, well. Service positions. Never in command, never in the army— though that was more to keep design costs down. Stormtrooper training and kits were not cheap.

Really, he thought, the reason the First Order had enforced three-minute sonic showers was as much to avoid giving troopers time to think as anything else. Also to try and keep them from looking at each others’ bodies as much, but they hadn’t succeeded in that very well anyway. It did mean that Finn spent a lot less time staring at other people or hiding his body than many members of the Resistance did. Except for the pilots, and it wasn’t just about Poe; he had a hard time looking away from the pilots because they covered their bodies in intricate tattoos.

Tattoos were symbols of individualism and thus not permitted in the First Order, unless you wanted to have the First Order’s emblem above your heart in a show of devotion. None of Finn’s squad had ever opted for that. The tattoos on the Resistance’s pilots, though...

Jessika Pava’s back was covered in an intricate starscape bounded by seaweed, filled with sea-life she’d told him was from her home planet of Danderon. Tendrils of seaweed arched over her hips and shoulders and trailed a little ways down her arms and legs. Her tattoos tied her to her homeland, to the life she’d given up to fly. She might be a pilot now, but until she’d been old enough to fly the sea had been her first love.

Lieutenant Asyr Fey’hane, a Bothan, had shown him how she dyed and shaved patterns into her light brown fur instead of tattooing herself where it wouldn’t be seen. The simple block patterns on her arms were a symbol of strength in battle, of proving herself and of choosing her affiliation in a way that none of her people could deny.

Snap Wexley’s tattoos were colorful, abstract, and wrapped around his left side. Finn could make out mechanical motifs, and stars, but little else. Snap didn’t explain, either, just smiled at him when he asked and said that they were personal.

Poe’s tattoos caught his attention the most, though. Beautiful wings curved out from his spine, intricately detailed feathers spreading across his shoulders and curving down his spine, so that when he raised his arms it almost looked like he could fly. Finn could see, if he looked closely (and he did, no matter how much he told himself it was rude), little pistons and metal struts where the wingbones would be, and where the wings would connect to Poe’s body.

There was also a star system on his left thigh, one of the planets marked out in beautiful emerald green, a striking contrast to the simple black linework of the rest of it. A ring around his ankle, orange and black and skin-tone matching BB-8’s design, completed Poe’s colors.

Finn didn’t ask Poe about his tattoos. It was more... intimate, somehow, than asking the other pilots, especially since Poe managed to never show them while they were in their shared living space.

 

* * *

Two weeks after being released from Medical, Poe sat down next to Finn, on the bed that was now Finn’s but had been just a spare, and said, “Did you troopers have relationships?”

“What.”

Poe rubbed at his face, trying to hide it, but Finn saw the ruddy tint to his ears anyway. “Like. You know. Snap’s got his husband. Han and the General were together. Relationships.”

“Yes,” Finn said, slow and careful. He set aside his datapad and turned to face Poe properly. “We had sex.”

Poe’s ears flushed darker.

“Friendship was discouraged.” He’d only figured that out properly after coming to the Resistance, too. “It was... more like banned, really,” he admitted, thinking about Slip. “Romantic relationships weren’t even something we had context for within our own ranks. The officers could have those, maybe, but they weren’t for the likes of us.”

“It’s not like that here.” Poe’s earnestness showed in his wide-open eyes, in the way he leaned closer, in the way he’d finally stopped blushing.

Finn tilted his head, smiled. “I know that.”

“So, if I told you that I liked you...”

“I think I know what you mean by that, yeah.” Finn lifted his left hand up, slowly, so that Poe could see every movement and stop him if he’d misread this. He placed it on Poe’s cheek, and felt something thrill through him at the way Poe’s eyes flickered closed and he leaned into the touch. Finn let his hand slide down Poe’s face and neck to his shoulder. “I don’t know if I’ll be any good at a relationship.”

“Nobody does, until they try.” His eyes were open again. He shifted, so that their knees were touching, a spot of warmth that spread more quickly than Finn ever would’ve thought possible. “I’d like to try alongside you.”

Finn grinned, mouth stretching without him quite knowing the cause. His heart thumped in his chest, in a way that would’ve worried him two months ago but now just excited him. Trepidation. Anxiety. Excitement. “I want to try.”

Poe’s delight radiated from him, almost visible, definitely tangible in how it washed across Finn. “I want to kiss you.”

Finn leaned forward in answer, and Poe’s hand came up to cradle his head, and Finn promptly realised he had no idea what he was doing. This kind of kissing was soft, nothing like the desperately fast, almost vicious, kissing that was sometimes part of sex in the First Order. Poe’s lips brushed his, pressed deeper, and Finn tried to mimic the motion but was pretty sure that he was failing.

When they broke apart, Poe was smiling, and that same almost-physical glow of joy spread from him. “I think you’re gonna do just fine.”

 

* * *

Five nights later, they were curled up in bed. The easy physicality was still strange. He couldn’t do anything this intimate in public, not yet, but here, when they were alone and he knew they weren’t being watched... it was as calm and comforting as breathing. Finn took one of those slow deep breaths, and tapped Poe’s right ankle with his toes, finally asking, “Why the tattoos?”

“That one’s for BB-8.” Poe’s lips brushed against Finn’s neck as he talked. “The one on my thigh was... almost a joke. Got it for my dad when I graduated the academy. So I can always find my way home.”

Finn wrapped his arms more tightly around Poe. His voice had roughened, gained the more fluid quality it did when Poe was tired. Finn was pretty sure Poe didn’t realise he did that, just like he didn’t realise that sometimes when he slept, he muttered in another language where the fluidity was part of the words to begin with. It was his home language, then, if that tone was coming out now.

Poe moved his head a little, then continued. “The wings... I always wanted them, I guess. Mama flew, and I always knew I was gonna fly too.”

“They’re beautiful.” Finn traced one of the feathers around the curve of Poe’s shoulder. “It suits you.”

“I got them when I joined the Resistance.” There’s something in Poe’s voice that Finn just can’t name. It’s quiet, and a bit sad, and a little fierce. “To remind myself that I’ll keep flying. Just like Mama did.”

Finn kissed Poe’s curls, and said, “Sounds like she’d be proud of you.”

“Yeah.”

They lay there, tangled up, quiet, for long enough that Finn was pretty sure Poe drifted off to sleep. Then Poe moved, hand brushing over Finn’s right shoulder and the scar there. Finn winced a little, and Poe murmured, almost inaudible, “It bothers you, doesn’t it?”

Finn nodded.

“You wanna put something there, make it yours?”

“What?”

Poe pushed himself up, eyes glinting in the darkness. “Just because we pilots have a thing about tattoos doesn’t mean we’re the only ones who can have them.”

“Oh.” Finn rubbed at his shoulder. The scar tissue was clean and shiny, not rough. It moved well, it just wasn’t the same. It was a reminder. “...yeah, I think I’d like that.”

Poe kissed his forehead, then the scar, and Finn laughed. Poe said, laying across Finn, voice rumbling through Finn’s body, “Think about what you might want, then. When you’re sure, we’ll make it something beautiful.”

Finn lay awake longer than Poe, he was sure, thinking. But he drifted off to sleep with the blaze of a blue lightsaber in his mind’s eye, and the swoop of X-Wings through the atmosphere, and—most of all—the hazel eyes and smile of his boyfriend.

 

* * *

It took him a week to be sure of what he wanted. “Nothing fancy,” he told Poe the afternoon he’d made up his mind. “I love Jess’ design, but it’s too much.”

Poe smiled and patted his knee. “I get that.”

“I think...” Finn shook his head. “No. I _know_ that I want to turn it into a star. I want a stripe of the night sky on my shoulder, on my collarbone.”

“That’s lovely.” Poe’s warmth settled deep in Finn’s torso, grounding him. “Which sky?”

Finn flushed, looking down. “I, well. Jakku.”

There was a beat of silence, and then Poe started laughing, _cackling_ really. “My buddy, O dearest love of mine— I thought you were the one who _didn’t_ want to go back there.”

“It’s where I got free,” Finn muttered, wrapping his arms tight around him. “And where I met you.”

Poe reached out and pulled him close, startling him enough that Finn ended up in Poe’s lap. “Sweetheart,” Poe said, laughter still in his voice, but his tone so serious that Finn couldn’t avoid it, “it’s perfect. I’m laughing because it’s delightful, and it’s a good way of making something that was kind of shitty into something utterly beautiful.” He leaned down, and kissed Finn’s nose. “Once you show me the starchart you want, we can do this in no time at all.”

Finn smiled, and nuzzled into Poe’s belly, prompting another laugh, and a protest of, “Stop tickling me!” that only made Finn tickle him harder and more intentionally, and the idea of tattoos was delayed for another day.

 

* * *

Poe did a lot of the tattoos for his pilots, Finn learned after giving him the starchart. “I’m not _just_ a pilot,” Poe had protested at his surprise. “It’s just... most of what I love doing.”

Finn had laughed and ruffled his hair. “I like that it’s you doing this for me. It seems right.”

Poe had grinned. “That it does.”

They were doing it in Medical anyway, because Medical had the right sort of space. Also because Medical had taken all the nice tattoo equipment and stored it there to make sure it got sterilized properly, according to Poe. It made sense to Finn; even if it was completely unnecessary and aesthetic, putting colours into a body where they weren’t originally _was_ a medical process.

Poe directed Finn to lie down, make himself comfortable on one of the medical chairs. “Also,” he added, “stay still.”

Finn mostly did. He just craned his head around, watching Poe as he cleaned everything up and got a holoprojector positioned just right. He clicked it on, and the starscape Finn had picked out glowed blue on his bare chest. It’d soon be there in white, bright against his skin. Not glowing. As much as Poe had argued for glow-in-the-dark ink, that was a little much. And, by how easily Poe had subsided, Finn was pretty sure he’d suggested it as a joke anyway.

The last wipe of sterilizer on his chest was chilly, but Poe’s hands were warm, even covered by thin gloves. “Remember,” Poe murmured, kissing his forehead, “it’ll sting a little.”

“I remember,” Finn said. He hadn’t told Poe about the pain tolerance activities the First Order did with them. From what he understood, tattoos wouldn’t be anywhere near that bad.

And he was right; the soft whir of the machine as it drove ink under his skin let him know when Poe had started, and the gentle sting wasn’t too bad, though it was certainly noticeable and edged on painful enough to make him wince over his collarbones. It was like some of the stinging plants they’d had to wade through in one round of survival training, and would probably fade about as quickly. Or at least, no less quickly than scratches, Finn amended, remembering the differences between tattoos and plants.

Poe was as careful and meticulous in this as he was flying his starfighter. It took longer than Finn had expected before Poe clicked off the tattoo gun, turned off the projector, and said, “It’s done.”

Finn looked down, saw the speckles of stars across his shoulder, and grinned. “Thank you.”

He heard the gentle clinks of Poe putting everything away, and then, “I love you.”

Finn laughed, and stood up, and hugged Poe tight, ignoring the way it made his shoulder flare into pain at the sudden pressure. “I love you too,” he said, and the wash of warmth and delight and joy that flooded him as Poe registered that statement made it even more true as he kissed his boyfriend and let their delight expand.


End file.
